management team
christopher gale, ceo
Chris brings 16 years of sales, marketing, business development, and operations experience in the high-tech software and solutions industry. He has successfully contributed to the top-line revenue in both the direct and partner markets for start-up's and established companies. Working with companies such as Sequel, Datachannel, Intelligroup, and Artefact has afforded Chris the opportunity to acquire a broad background in both product and services. This includes solutions varying from Internet security to web publishing, ERP, medical compliance, mobile devices, patient safety and homeland security.
In 2005, Chris was asked by the Board of Directors of the Seattle-based software company, Iomedex, to assist with their re-launch into the highly competitive local, state and federal market. In a two year period, Chris assisted in raising capital, established relationships with over 150 local, state and federal agencies and expanded the companies product and services offerings. In the years since, he has assisted nine additional start-ups with business plan creation, fund raising, market opportunity analysis, market requirements documentation and establishing sales methodology. Whether an interim executive for a net-new start-up, a VP of Sales and Delivery with responsibility for raising capital, or as head of business development for a multinational consulting agency where he built a $45M P&L in 3 years, Chris uses his strong operational, sales and marketing skills to drive growth and success.
Chris has had the opportunity to sell and partner with Nike, Symbol, Northrop Grumman, DOD, Homeland Security, Department of Health, Cantor Fitzgerald, Chase Manhattan, McCann-Erickson, Harper Collins Publishing, FEMA, Coors, AT&T, Microsoft, SAP, Lenovo, Dell, Motorola 3Com and McAfee.
Chris is a Seattle native, a graduate of Western Washington University, a husband and a father (arguably the most important of all roles).
megan rabin, co-founder & chief sales officer
Megan brings over a decade of enterprise sales and channel development experience to the team at ParkSimpl.
Megan began her career at Merrill Lynch as a financial consultant before moving to Portand to begin her GE Capital career where she held various sales and management positions and earned a Six Sigma Blackbelt. Megans time with GE (and six transfers) afforded her an opportunity to gain experience in reinsurance, health care, financial assurance, construction, and hotel/restaurant finance. After 5 short months with GE, Megan was transferred to Chicago and selected for GEs prestigious Experienced Commercial Leadership Program (ECPL). After ECLP, she was asked to manage one of the organizations newest, and soon to be, largest client relationships, Ingersoll Rand. In her first full year, Megan produced $90 MM in revenue exceeding her goal by 48%; only to surpass her goal again in 2006, growing the business to well over $135MM. In March of 2007, Megan was promoted and transferred back home to the Seattle area to run a sales team with the Franchise Finance business (restaurants and hotels). In her first year back in Seattle, Megan increased sales by over 27%.
Having found a renewed connection to her home town and wishing to avoid corporate transfers again, Megan left her role as Senior Vice President at GE Capital Franchise Finance in November of 2008 to stay in Seattle and run sales for Design Laboratories, Inc.(DLI). As a sales leader at DLI and an interim VP of Sales for a Seattle-based early stage technology client, Megan assisted in the re-organization and new launch of the teams sales and marketing programs. In 2009, Megan caught the start-up bug and decided to put her skills to work for a company she would be instrumental in creating and launching: As co-founder of ParkSimpl, she can do just that!
Megan holds a degree in economics from University of California, Santa Barbara, where she finished her college career following a transfer from San Jose State University where she started college on a Softball scholarship.
Megan is an avid sports fan and enjoys hiking, running and umpiring fast-pitch softball.
creative/development team
eric baumgartner, chief creative officer vml/wunderman
Eric Baumgartner, VML Chief Creative Officer, relocated to VML’s Seattle office in his capacity as Global Creative Lead for Team Microsoft. Thanks to his broad span of practical experience — spanning traditional advertising, interactive marketing and digital delivery — Eric inspires solutions at the convergence of knowledge, strategy, innovation and creativity.
From the outset of his career, Eric has provided creative guidance for national brands. At his first agency assignment, he led creative campaigns for “category killer” accounts Blockbuster, McDonalds and Wal-Mart.Upon joining VML in 1995, Eric designed and implemented Sprint’s first “official” online presence and was tapped to develop Sprint’s original online brand guidelines. For nearly a decade, he helped guide the evolution of Sprint’s online presence.
Eric’s achievements haven’t gone unnoticed. He was recognized by .Net magazine in the UK as one of the top 10 interactive designers in the world, and his work was recently selected for two Best of Show W3 Awards for visual appeal and branding by the International Academy of Visual Arts.
Innovative work produced by Eric for the American Cancer Society and ERC has been featured in the design annuals of Communication Arts and PRINT magazine. Eric continues to stretch the bounds of online design and digital architecture in online merchandising, B2B and consumer communications, as well as application development and viral marketing. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and workshops.
stuart wallace, creative director vml/wunderman
Stuart has been involved in the advertising world for over 20 years and in the digital world for 18 years. He has built world class creative and technology teams. Before turning pro, he had 2 companies prior to joining the dark side of advertising at 29 as a Creative Director to build an interactive discipline for the second largest adverting agency in Kansas City in 1997. The group won various awards around the globe including a London International Award and many national and local awards.
Stuart then joined the VML, the premier digital agency in the Midwest and arguably the country, VML. After building a world class digital team they took on H&R Block, Sprint Business, Sprint International, Burger King, Simon Properties and many others as the AOR of interactive.
Stuart then took on the task of helping build the Applied Technology Group (ATG) at VML to bring advanced technology to marketing distribution. They built everything for Hypersonic Sounds (HSS) applications, internet control remote controlled devices, variable video network systems and software to monitor - find and influence online users in an advertising and marketing way.
Stuart took a few years away from the advertising world to focus on building a software company. Once the company was up and running, Stuart moved to Seattle and rejoined the Wunderman Network to be involved in various aspects of creative development and distribution of advertising and marketing in the Seattle officer.
mike jenklin, software architect vml/wunderman
Mike is a technical architect who joined VML in 2004 and relocated to Seattle in 2006. Since that time, he has been responsible for architecting and developing a large variety of applications across Microsoft business groups including: Windows Mobile, Xbox, Silverlight, Servers & Tools and Windows Live. A key example of his innovative work, the Windows Live Messenger Mimic application/platform, was developed in 2005, localized in 14 locales and has continued to receive heavy traffic even without promotion. Throughout his career at VML, Mike has specialized in rapid prototyping and leveraging new technologies to push the technical boundaries of the projects he’s worked on. Currently, Mike is leading various technology efforts across VML’s Microsoft and T-Mobile clients. He recently led an effort to launch a massive loyalty portal for T-Mobile customers that integrated T-Mobile backend systems, a third party database and web service, a third party intelligence gathering personality quiz and a custom user interface.
board of directors
christopher gale, chairman
megan rabin, director
kathleen campbell, director
Kathleen currently serves as Sr. Vice President GE Commercial Finance, in Belleuve, WA. Kathleen began her career at the Bank of Tokyo, Seattle as a loan closer and foreign exchange specialist. After 3 years, she joined the Franchise Finance Group of MetLife Capital Corporation (acquired by GE Capital in 1999). For the last 17 years, she has held various positions within the group, including documentation, underwriting and direct sales. In 2003, she transferred to a Quality Black Belt role supporting the Sales team, earning certification in 2005. She was then asked to lead the McDonald’s and Small Ticket lending programs for GE Franchise Finance. During her two years in this position, the group grew sales volume by 37%, exceeding targets every year. In 2007, she helped establish a middle market franchisee restaurant lending group and grew the team to 5 sales representatives in 4 months. She is currently the West Region Sales Manager/SVP for the Restaurant segment and McDonald’s portfolio, managing over $1.7B in assets. Kathleen earned her Bachelor’s degree in business economics from Willamette University. She also holds a Master’s in business administration from Seattle University.
Kathleen enjoys travel, cooking, wine tasting, reading, music and spending time with friends and family.
board of advisors
karen bryant, ceo wnba's seattle storm
eric baumgartner, chief creative officer vml/wunderman
ryan moloney, co-founder and technology contributor
Ryan is also the founder and CEO of Atlas Networks, formed in 2008 in partnership with Atlas Accelerator. Prior to founding Atlas Networks, Ryan served as the CEO of several companies, including 9 years at NetRiver Corporation, a data center company he founded in 1999. His professional background includes business management, technical operations, data center design, network and low voltage systems design, and point of sale systems architecture. Outside of work Ryan spends most of his time backpacking in the Cascades and flyfishing in rivers all over the northwest.
spencer kunath, co-founder parksimpl
Spencer founded Parksimpl in January 2010. He is the former Chief Operating Officer of Nakea, Inc., a Seattle-based website services start-up. He joined Nakea in 2008 when there were only two employees and substantial debt. Today, the company has productized its content management system, launched it and began generating revenues. During this period Nakea raised more than a half million dollars in equity financing.
A Seattle native, Spencer brings to the team a diverse entrepreneurial background having spent time in legal services, print and online media in the Seattle market, as well as financial services internationally for Barclays Bank. Spencer has served as a member of the National Traveling Staff in Senator Kerrys Presidential Campaign. He was also a member of Governor Gregoires Finance and Communication team during her 2004 Campaign. He has his undergraduate degree cum laude in Economics, Politics and History from DePauw University and is a candidate for an M.Sc. in International Political Economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Spencer was recently elected Fellow to the Royal Geographic So
